My actual anniversary was a month ago, Thursday, September 29th

The words rotator cuff surgery still make me shudder. It was a very tough experience. It took me 14 mos to recover, they had suggested it would be at least 12. 

Back in regular yoga classes now, I do dolphin instead of down dog most of the time. I am very careful about holding/lifting heavy things out from my body or up high. 

When I woke from surgery that day, 9/29/2020, I was pretty sad. I thought I knew what I was in for, but frankly, it was (much) worse than I thought. 

That was a very long road. 

Having that surgery/recovery during Covid lockdown definitely helped, Middle was living at home, my husband was working from home, I had the round the clock help which I needed desperately.

Yes that is a fire truck at the end of my driveway

 

In August of 2021, youngest and I serviced all the smoke detectors in our house. Some of the detectors had hit their expiration date and were replaced. All the batteries were changed.

August 2022, all the smoke detector batteries were changed again. 

A week ago today, 10am, I was sewing in my little sewing room under the stairs, middle was in her shower, my husband was in the kitchen, and all the smoke detectors in the house went off. 

My husband was not cooking. 

He looked, I looked, inside/outside/attic, we could not find anything amiss, but they continued to blare. When we were confident there was no fire, we opened windows and doors. They continued to blare. 

I called 911, who told us to evacuate and the fire department was on the way. 

After checking the house again inside and out, including the attic, fire department started checking smoke detectors. It was the one in middle’s bedroom, which was one of the new ones we installed August 2021 with a new battery added August 2022.

I had a new smoke detector still in the box ready in the garage. They replaced the faulty detector. I pitched the faulty one.

I went to the store and bought a new back up detector the very same day. 

It felt good that I knew exactly what the history was with all our smoke detectors. When the fire chief asked I was able to say - replaced expired equipment/all batteries August 2021, replaced batteries again August 2022. 

Company for PT

I mentioned in a previous post, I do PT neck exercises in the bathtub almost every morning. I soak my legs and hands in hot water/epsom salts while I do my neck exercises. This process/pairing (hot water, epsom salt, PT) helps my day get off to a good start. 

The daily neck exercises allow me to continue to do two important things: head checks while driving, tipping my head back to gargle after brushing my teeth or doing my inhaler (asthma). 

These two are my company each morning - 

 

An excel program helped

At a family wedding in August 2022, two of my husband’s cousins mentioned quilts I had given them for wedding gifts (which I did not remember) long ago. 

These two were siblings and the aunt and uncle of the October 1, 2022 wedding’s bride. That put quilts into my brain. 

I was not sure I could manage it, my left hand is quite bad (arthritis). But the thought was persistent - quilts, wedding gift, delayed wedding gift for the bride’s sister, using up fabric I had loved/kept. 

I had a fabulous pile of flannel already cut in 9.5” squares that went together nicely. And I thought that if I was very careful, I could get two large lap quilts out of it. 

Youngest built me a very simple excel program to expedite fabric placement. 

The goal was to lay out one quilt, only using half of each fabric, leaving enough for an identical second quilt. The excel program made it accurate and simple. I laid out the colors on the left (above) and the program kept track of used/remaining on the right (above).

I sewed the 9.5” squares together fairly easily. Middle pressed the seams for me. My long arm quilter quilted them on her machine. I sewed the binding on by machine, I am no longer able to do handwork.

The whole process was humbling. The quilts were so basic/simple that it was almost embarrassing (so far below my previous skill set). 

And it is sort of a sacrilege to sew the binding on by machine. (Normally it is sewn to the front of the quilt and then flipped around to the back and hand sewn so no stitches show.) I had to top stitch it, stitches showed. 

But finished, the quilts were nice. The solid gold fabric on the back is actually pin-whale corduroy, so the flannel quilts are thick/heavy. I did not have enough corduroy, I added a cotton print and used the same fabric for the binding. The colors are both fall-ish and Christmas-y. 

The excel program speeded up the process in an easy/accurate way. It also prevented errors. One of my concerns was making a mistake and then middle having to rip out seams. With the printed plan in hand, I was able to check each square carefully before I sewed, and prevent errors. 

My previous method would have been to lay all the squares on the floor and then run back and forth to the sewing machine. This would have been very time consuming and inaccurate since I was making two identical quilts. 

The excel program allowed me to figure out exact placement for both quilts and be confident I had enough of each color.

We had a wedding today

The wedding was out of town and we took the train. 

I made two, identical quilts for this event. One was a wedding gift. One was for the sister of the bride, whose wedding we missed, five years ago.

Standing at the dentist’s reception desk on Friday morning, the day before the wedding, paying a bill, I just happened to ask if they had any ideas for very strong gift bags to transport two quilts to Chicago via train. 

They did - reuseable shopping bags from Tuesday Morning. It was a fabulous idea - only $1.99 each, large and very sturdy. 

I wrapped each quilt in tissue paper and put a large decorate sticker to hold it. The bags had cute designs and are made from recycled water bottles, very sturdy.

When we got to the hotel, the uncle of the bride/her sister relieved us of the bags and put them in his hotel room. 

At the cocktail hour, I told both girls there were bags for them in their uncle’s room. The aunt of the two girls also knew. 

So, these were fabulous wedding girls. One on time, one five years late. I used up a big stack of fabric. The bags were clever and dependable on the train. I was pretty pleased with the whole process. 

Physical therapy

Update - 

If you missed it, I added to my last post. 

Calculated out to an annual cost, (machine) Pilates was a serious annual financial commitment. 

If I find a mat Pilates class, I will reevaluate.

I picked up a second yoga class, Tuesday nights, instead.

Today’s post - 

I met with a physical therapist in late September to reevaluate my needs and update my custom physical therapy app. 

My app program contains multiple sets of exercises. I do one section at a time. 

I do my neck series, first thing in the morning in the bathtub with Epsom salts, nearly every day. I keep my hands relaxed in my hot water while I do the neck series/seated extras. This is now an established habit. Pairing the hot water/soaking my hands, and the PT series, is very effective in helping me to this nearly daily. 

The bath tub extras? We added a few other things to this “bath tub” set, like twists and a modified seated pigeon pose, a modified seated mountain, and a seated cat/cow. 

Then we updated my standing arm series, my floor arm series, my standing leg series, my floor leg series. My goal is to alternate these so I do one section a day, in addition to my bath tub routine. 

My challenge with this is to pair it with something else so it becomes a daily ritual. And to find a set place in the house where this works for me. 

I am relistening to Gretchen Rubin’s book, Better Than Before, to help me with this. 

My bathtub ritual took a lot of creativity. It is an unusual answer and a unique pairing. But it works!

It started because I had Covid mid summer and was on my nebulizer machine several times a day. My husband realized the machine had a long tube to the mouthpiece. The machine could sit safely (far) away from the tub. And the hot water helped my pain. I was very motivated to soak in hot water while I breathed. It was very meditative-like for me.